Best Practices for Email List Management
Finally, your list growing strategies are all in place, and you’re gaining a substantial number of subscribers. But, that doesn’t mean your work ends there.
Whether you’ve employed the best email marketing service or an advanced marketing automation software, you still need email list management strategies to make sure you constantly achieve your marketing goals.
Without these practices in place, you can end up with a poor deliverability rate and inaccurate marketing data. All the time and effort you put into your email marketing campaign will go to waste. With these best practices for email list management, you can ensure that your emails are successfully delivered to your recipients’ inboxes.
1. Streamline Your Signup Process
Test your signup process. Try subscribing to your own list so that you’ll know what it’s like for subscribers. It’s not enough for it to simply work—the signup process has to be easy and seamless.
2. Use a Double Opt-In Form
Every single person in your email list should give you their permission to send them marketing emails, but one opt-in shouldn’t be enough.
A second opt-in will allow you to make sure that your subscriber really wants to receive marketing communications and help you detect misspelled or inactive email addresses.
3. Develop an Email List Cleaning System
Your email list should be cleaned periodically to purge it of inactive or disengaged subscribers. Remember, people’s email addresses change – they leave their jobs, switch providers, or even change their names.
Keeping an accurate and useful email list will allow you to maximize your marketing strategies and increase conversions.
4. Segment Your List
Segmenting and segregating your list will allow you to get to know your subscribers on a deeper level and give you the information you need to send them personalized marketing messages. Place all disengaged and inactive users in one segment.
5. Check for Email Validity Right from the Beginning
Make sure your signup form where users enter their email address can automatically check for proper email formatting. This prevents users from giving you an email address with an incorrect spelling or format that at least follows the usual email@email.com format.
The moment they sign up, send them an email and ask them to confirm their email address.
6. Remove Disengaged Subscribers
Remember how you segment your list and placed all the disengaged subscribers under one group? Well, you can do two things: send them a re-engagement email and then delete those that don’t respond or read your emails.
These subscribers are bringing down your numbers. Don’t hesitate to delete them all from your email list.
7. Do Periodic Re-Opt-Ins
If you want to keep your email list clean and keep them purged of subscribers who don’t engage with your content or don’t belong in any of your buyer personas, then sending opt-in emails 2 to 3 times a year is a great strategy. This will keep your email list more manageable.
If your email marketing automation software charges you per subscriber, then you’re also reducing your cost per conversion.
8. Provide an Unsubscribe Link
Giving subscribers the option to unsubscribe from your email list is required by most, if not all, email marketing services. More importantly, it’s part of the CAN-SPAM law.
Some marketers, however, choose to provide a tiny unsubscribe link at the very bottom of their email that subscribers can barely even see. Make your unsubscribe link visible so that it’s easier for disinterested subscribers to opt-out. That way, you don’t have to remove them yourself.
9. Comply with the CAN-SPAM Act
If complaints are filed against you or you are found to be non-compliant with the CAN-SPAM Act, you may be subject to fines.
What’s worse is that email providers can ban you from sending marketing emails in the future. That’s a huge problem. Don’t be spammy. It’s a big turn-off.
10. Ask Subscribers to Add You to Their Address Book
Sometimes, your emails aren’t delivered to the inbox of your subscriber. It could also happen that they’re using an inbox filter. When this happens, your email gets lost in the fray, and your subscribers fail to even open your message. Be upfront about it and ask your subscriber to add you to their address book.
It’s pretty simple, but the benefit of being officially added to your subscriber’s email address book is significant – your emails will go to their inbox instead of the spam folder.
Bottom Line
Email list management is an ongoing process to help you ensure that the subscribers in your list belong to your target market and are interested in your brand.
A huge email list with thousands of subscribers may signal that your marketing campaign is working well, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to conversion and sales. For all you know, your email list contains hundreds of invalid email addresses or disinterested subscribers.
Partner up with the best email marketing service to make sure that your email list stays healthy.
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